An excursion into certain areas of art, computers, philosophy, text, zombies, alchemy, metallurgy, music, food, creativity, pataphysics, politics, France where I worked as a cultural civil servant (yes, I do know that this is appalling), Berlin where I live and work for me, England where I come from, and so on... this may change.

Monday, March 27, 2006

The more that images, representations, "knowledge" ("I know that my redeemer liveth" - no you don't) is "democratised" the more the production of it is insular, free of teamwork, free of discourse. From the fresco to the blog is a long way down, from the necessary teamwork of the former to the nearly always monomania of the latter, this blog being no exception. Actually, I think that even cooperative blogs don't change my thesis; there's still, oddly, something of "aloneness" about the blog-making activity.

The bloggist thinks she or he is a producer, but is much more the consumer of the means of blog production. It seems to be capitalism at work in a pure form.

We have lost any last shred of truth that may (not) have been inherent in Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message": possibly a useful stimulus to asking certain kinds of question about media, but far outweighed by other questions we should be asking, such as:

to whom was the message addressed, and why?

under what circumstances was it made, and by whom?

under what circumstances will the recipient receive and try to understand it?

I write a blog, you write a blog, and, far contrary to what we have been led to believe, the world changes less, not more. Most uses, indeed, of new media, are not revolutionary but reformist at best, tied by chains of self-deception (and a language not of real communication but of marketing) to the most mundane of grounds.

Computer-based means of representation are the most conservative forms around. Most interaction is spurious, most exploration determined and led by those with all the sensitivity of a hand-held missile launcher.

The paradigm of the blog is not the daziboa, or Chin*se wall-newspaper, but the cynical, appalling letter shoved through your letter box swearing you've won millions or at least a small plastic object of negative value.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

And - a common trick to disorient students of world affairs, I know - to see the world "upside down", as if there were a correct way of looking at it. The United Kingdom in particular looks even less important than usual.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Last night I met a person studying to be a pathologist. She said she had no problem with cutting up bodies, it was really interesting. But the ones they used to practice on were all long-dead. They pulled them from the fridge, did a bit of work on them, then shoved them back again. I said, But when you're a pathologist, you'll be working on the newly dead. She said, Oh dear, you're right, I hadn't thought about that - that's not so easy.

An anorexic physiotherapist with a Chinese eye-chart was whom I saw this morning.

Monday, March 20, 2006

For the first time, as far as I know, I have managed to capture, using a powerful scanning electron microscope, the actual birth, or at least hatching, of a small but perfectly formed Zombie homunculus. The strands you see are of fibres from beneath the bed. The magnification is 643 times.

Seated one day at the iMac, feeling weary and ill at ease, I plugged it into the microscope, and fingered the ivory keys. I don't know what I was doing, or if it came from beyond me, but I pressed one combination and witnessed the birth of a Zombie - I witnessed the birth of a Zombie!

It flooded the crimson twilight, like the close of an angel's palm and it lay on my fevered spirit with a touch of Zombie calm. It quieted pain and sorrow like petals on a knife, seeming a harmonious echo of our discordant life. It link'd all perplexed meanings into one perfect piece, like a drink in Berlin's Florian, or a bouillabaisse in Nice.

I have sought - but I seek it vainly - that moment so divine that came from the heart of the microscope and entered into mine. It may be that death's bright tunnel will pour that sight upon me; it may be only in Vierzon, or somewhere far beyond me; it may come in a boiling vision of someone who lost or won me, that I reach once more for the microscope and witness the birth of a Zombie... I witnessed the birth of a Zombie!

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Just as acupuncture works by the little needles piercing the skin and entering the blood vessels where they attract and trap small and large sins floating around, the needles then being withdrawn, the sins adhering to them (alcohol should not be used for sterilisation of needles used for alcohol-related sins, as this may exacerbate the problem) - just as acupuncture works like that, so too do tiny flakes of snow get trapped more by long, thin people, adhering to them and eventually covering them, when the person turns into a Zombie.There is a theory that snowflakes actually come from outer space, and that this "panspermia" seeded the earth - perhaps the universe - with Zombies.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Once more, something done with no feeling, no thought. Take an image? Ok, that one. Do something to it? Ok. The point being that in denying all qualia, all human-like input, one might search all the harder for some semblance of humanity behind the plastic, in the underpainting, between the lines... in a corner of our brains.

To push this a little further than perhaps it ought to be: the search for a shred of humanity might on some non-trivial level be a reflection of the search for the least event, the tiny spontaneous jump, that drew a primordial distinction between "this" and "that", which created existence, time and so on; you know...

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

This is it, you see... You take just any old image that comes to hand, and do any old OuPeinPo-ish manipulation that you can conceive of (decapitation, turning inside out...) and lo and behold, you have pure Zombie Art. By definition.

Not an ounce or gramme of emotion or feeling in there at all. Save that for <insert your occasion>.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

These people are so used to their Zombie bandages that they forget they are wearing them and have no shame. Some of them even manage to hold down "jobs", and seek to persuade others that they are ordinary humans. The bandage is a tell-tale sign. Without them, however, they would be unrecognisable as the undead.This picture, too dangerous to use in its original form, has been sealed under strong plastic. They cannot escape now.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Actually, shouldn't it be the 21st of March? Anyway, no daffodils being sold on the street yet but Zombie skeletons are growing hair in the municipal carpark.Wondering if the colonic cleansing products - that is the products of, not for, colonic balayage - would make good sculptures. I hate to do it again, but really must draw your attention to the site showing these intestinal sculptures. (For a site detailing the production of Zombie heads from plastic foam, see here. Of course these are not REAL Zombie heads. For those, see here.) But on my way to start this process, I noted some plastic foam that had been used to close off a door in my French place of work. It seems very similar, and I wonder if the colonic pictures are real? I think we should be told.